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Richmond Virtual Academy may become its own school
The Richmond Virtual Academy is to become a new elementary school that could enroll between 400 and 500 students a year in online classes, the Richmond School Board decided Monday night. Instead of phasing out the program online learning program as Superintendent Jason Kamras proposed in February, the board, after hearing pleas from academy supporters, adopted a proposal by School Board member Kenya Gibson, 3rd District, to make RVA a school of record like other elementary schools, and eligible for annual state and local funding like other schools. While that decision must be approved by the state Department of Education, the vote to keep RVA as a functioning entity came as the board finalized its budget for the 2022-23 fiscal year. The board had a deadline on Wednesday to deliver a finished budget to City Council. Overall, the approved budget authorizes a record $548 million in total spending, or an expenditure of about $25,253 for each of the 21,700 students RPS estimated as enrolled in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. Along with grants and one-time federal funds, the RPS budget provides $356.6 million in general fund spending, which mostly includes revenue from the city and state, or about $16,400 per student. The board, which cut $6 million from Mr. Kamras’ original general fund proposal, is relying on receiving a $15 million increase from the city in the fiscal year that begins July 1. That would boost total support from the city from $185.3 million this fiscal year to a new record of $200.3 million in 2022- 23. The increase from the city is largely designed to fund the local share of a 5 percent pay increase for teachers and other staff that the state plans to institute. Staff and teachers of the Richmond Virtual Academy, currently listed as a program and funded with federal CARES Act dollars, advocated for it to remain open and funded and rallied parents to lobby for the survival of the academy that adopted the owl as its mascot and bills itself as a space “where learning is a hoot.” The board’s vote was both a reaction to the lobbying and a rebuke to the adminis- tration, which had notified the academy’s entire staff that they would be laid off as of July 1 and would need to reapply for positions within RPS. Mr. Kamras initially proposed cutting the program from 70 to just 10 instructors, who would largely teach homebound students too sick or injured to come to school or students removed from in-person learning for discipline reasons. Cindi Robinson, the academy’s princi- pal, said the board’s action is good news for parents and students. “Virtual learning is not just a Band-Aid,” Ms. Robinson said, noting that numerous school divisions have found some students “actually thrive and do better” in an online program. Among them is Sheila Barlow’s 19-year- old son, Douglas. Ms. Barlow told the board that the virtual school has been a boon for her son and other students like him with serious disabilities who can now attend class from home in a safe environment. Her son has Down syndrome and can- not talk, she said. “He has a sign language interpreter for all of his classes,” Ms. Barlow told the Free Press. “If he goes back to in-person learning, my son would not have that service.” While the board’s action appears to have saved the virtual academy, the board’s funding will provide only for a reduced operation. Richmond’s virtual operation enrolls about 768 students, including 500 elementary school students, which is fewer students than Henrico and Chesterfield’s school systems. But that would shrink further. The board’s funding would allow for only 30 total staff, including a principal, counselors and other staff and about 23 instructional staff strictly for elementary programming. Currently, the school has at least 70 staff members, including a 43-member instructional staff. As part of the transition, the School Board agreed with the administration’s plan to end enrollment for middle and high school students who can move to the state’s online program, Virtual Virginia. The revamped Richmond Virtual Acad- emy also will oversee virtual educational programming for students who are home- bound for disciplinary or health reasons. According to board members, the ad- ministration is expected to drop the cur- rent homebound program that dispatches teachers to the homes of students to provide in-person instruction two hours a day. If it becomes a school of record as anticipated, RVA would not only have a budget, but would also report state Stan- dards of Learning test results. The board’s budget, meanwhile, cuts more deeply into the central office staff than Mr. Kamras proposed and largely eliminates contracts for consultants pro- viding curriculum training. Ms. Gibson also won approval for an audit of Mr. Kamras’ original budget plan after she turned up a significant discrepancy in total employee numbers compared with the current year. The board also provided funding for the first time to enable 400 students to take math, science and other required high school classes at the Richmond Technical Center along with their career and voca- tional training programs. Under the initiative advanced by Jona- than Young, 4th District, the students will no longer have to be shuttled back to their home schools for those courses. This change is seen as a harbinger of the proposed career and technical high school that RPS plans to create in a former tobacco plant in South Side. In addition, the board also provided funds to support an increase in the number of students during the next four years at two specialty high schools, Richmond Com- munity and Franklin Military Academy, and three regional high schools, Code RVA and the Maggie L. Walker and Appomattox regional governor’s schools.
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Snowstorm plows through city budget
The winter storm that dumped 12 inches of snow on Richmond three weeks ago did more than snarl traffic, stall mail service and close schools.j
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Attacks on Black people cause lasting trauma, by Julianne Malveaux
All Ralph Yarl was trying to do was pick up his siblings in Kansas City. He went to a home on 1100 NE 115th Street instead of 1100 NE 115th Terrace, an understandable mistake that could have been easily rectified had the homeowner, who opened the door with a gun instead, said “wrong address” and provided directions to the right one. Instead, the rabid white man shot the 16-year-old in the head and the arm.
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Clarence Thomas statue backed by Republicans in Georgia
Republican Georgia lawmakers are again trying to erect a statue of U.S. Supreme Court Justice and Georgia native Clarence Thomas on the State Capitol grounds in Atlanta, in what many Democrats, particularly Black ones, see as an insensitive display of partisan power.
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Show the world a new Richmond
I was fortunate to come of age as the Civil Rights Movement was coming to a climax in the 1960s. As an observer and participant, and later an amateur historian, I was witness to the destruction of Jim Crow. I know why local officials put the statues on Monument Avenue and what they still represent.
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Rep. A. Donald McEachin energizes crowd at Community Leaders Breakfast
Congressman A. Donald McEachin got serious — and spiritual — very quickly last Friday as he launched his keynote address at Virginia Union University’s 40th Annual Community Leaders Breakfast.
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Fulton family receives unexpected blessing of mortgage payoff
It began as a casual conversation. Then it quickly turned into what Travis L. and Latarsha F. Woods can only call “a blessing from God.”
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It’s a deal
City and RVA Diamond Partners finalize $2.44B agreement; council vote comes next
The Diamond District – Richmond’s biggest ever development – is now at the starting gate after seven months of negotiations between the city and RVA Diamond Partners LLC (RVADP), the private developer.
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City goes dim on solar streetlights
Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones has boasted many times during the last seven years about the solar streetlights that were installed in a West End neighborhood with taxpayers’ dollars.
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This ugly scene shows all that remains of fire-ravaged playground equipment. Location: Fairfield Court Elementary School in the East End. The $120,000 in swings, slides …
Published on August 28, 2014
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Spectators have a ringside seat last Sunday as workers use powerful machines to de- molish the parking deck of the vacant Richmond Plaza building at …
Published on August 19, 2016
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Muslims in U.S. working toward greener Ramadan with less waste
Religion News Service Neekta Hamidi usually gets a few strange looks when she sits down for an iftar, the evening meal that breaks the Ramadan fast, at her mosque in Boston.
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First Baptist Chesterfield project lacks black participation
First Baptist Church of South Richmond has poured nearly $6 million into buying land and developing its long-planned satellite sanctuary in Chesterfield County.
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RRHA ‘missed a golden opportunity’ to help people become homeowners
Re “Prospect of home ownership escapes 70-year-old Randolph resident,” Free Press June 29-July 1 edition: I was appalled reading the Free Press front page story about Charlene Harris, the 70-year-old Randolph resident. Is the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority’s management becoming aloof and unfeeling towards the residents they serve? To think that the RRHA would move a 70-year-old lady from a house she has lived in and called home for 49 years and relocate her into a less desirable house and neighborhood is inconceivable.
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RRHA, Club 533 seek rezoning for new development
The old saying, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” appears to be at work in Jackson Ward. Six years after the collapse of a plan to build an eight-story hotel on North 3rd Street next to the interstate, a new effort is being mounted to make it happen.
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Vanderbilt launches James Lawson Institute or the Research and Study of Nonviolent Movements
Vanderbilt University announced the launch of the James Lawson Institute for the Research and Study of Nonviolent Movements, honoring the 92-year-old influential activist who taught nonviolence to protesters during the civil rights struggles last century.
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GRTC officials seek to limit ridership to essential trips
Teens and younger children might have a harder time taking advantage of free rides on GRTC. On Tuesday, the bus company announced that unaccompanied minors no longer can ride the public transit buses unless they are dressed in work uniforms or can show proof of employment, such as a badge.
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Personality: Lawrence D. ‘Larry’ Wilder Jr.
Spotlight on board chair of the Southside Community Development and Housing Corp.
Lawrence D. “Larry” Wilder Jr.’s focus and passion these days is revitalization. The 55-year-old son of former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder and retiring Richmond Treasurer Eunice M. Wilder loves his volunteer work as board chairman of the Southside Community Development and Housing Corp., a nonprofit that helps first-time buyers achieve their dream of home ownership.
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VLBC outlines legislative priorities for new General Assembly session
Buoyed by two legislative sessions last year that ushered in huge reforms in voting and criminal justice, the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus is vowing to keep pressing for more change.
